


I Love You

by Lobotomite



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: I just binge watched the whole series so, M/M, here's a thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-17
Updated: 2018-04-17
Packaged: 2019-04-24 04:41:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14348163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lobotomite/pseuds/Lobotomite
Summary: Turns out being in love isn't so hard, after all.





	I Love You

It's funny. For so long his mind shied away from even thinking about saying it; just the thought of it made his throat tight and his chest tighter. It seemed like the scariest, most reckless thing in a world that terrifies him ninety percent of the time. But then he'd said it, and now... now it feels like the softest, safest thing in the universe, to say "I love you".

Don't get him wrong, he's not about to go around declaring his affection to everyone who might conceivably qualify. His dad would probably assume he had something terminal if he announced it unprovoked; his mother, bless her, would take the opportunity to wax rhapsodic about herself; Alexis – well. She probably wouldn't look at him like he was an idiot insultingly wasting her time like she would have a few years ago, but he can already see the head tilt and condescending smile he'd be treated to as if he was an adorable three legged puppy or something.

Stevie's the kind of friend he didn't think it was actually possible to have, and he can admit (occasionally, quietly, to himself and nobody else) that he really does love her. Not the way he'd thought he might, at the beginning of their friendship, when being genuinely close to another person was so foreign that he didn't know how to differentiate between love and _in love._ It is, though, love in a very real way. However, when it comes to actually telling her – he's not going to put either of them through the awkward mess of a conversation _that_ would be. Not without copious, alcohol-poisoning-inducing amounts of booze, anyway.

Patrick, though. Patrick makes it so _easy_. The way his stupidly cute face lights up whenever David says it feels like some sort of calculated ploy to create a Pavlovian response in him, and it works twice as well at doing that because he knows it's not calculated at all.

It's not always that delighted, disbelieving smile he'd been treated to the first time, but it's always, always exactly what he needs. It's the creases in the corners of Patrick's eyes when David says it walking into the shop in the morning (much to his dismay, this particular one no longer distracts Patrick from the fact that David is half an hour late). It's the trembling inhalation when David gasps it as they're pressed so close he can feel Patrick's lungs inflate, the way Patrick's fingers flex and dig into his bare skin. It's the coy smile and gentle tug on his lapels when he says it as soon as Patrick walks through the door. It's the way Patrick is just _Patrick_ , the way he unashamedly lets himself _react_ , doesn't seem to find any shame in adoring David's affection.

David is not at all opposed to PDA; he's not gross about it – he does have taste, after all – but he's always happy to press a kiss to Patrick's mouth in public, to twist their fingers together, to bump up against him and press in close. To make it clear that he, David Rose, has manged to attract and keep Patrick.

"I love you"s, though - those he can't bring himself to say in front of people. It's not that he's ashamed. It's not that he's scared of anyone else's reactions. It's just that it's so new, so intimate, that he only trusts Patrick to react the right way.

In the end, it doesn't matter what other people think. He loves Patrick. Patrick, for some reason, loves him, selfishness and snobbiness and all. They love each other. And this is the happiest he has ever been.


End file.
